As a new player that really likes this game ...

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The leveup potion thing is a recent addition added solely to help facilitate new people being able to jump ahead to play with friends. It wasn't the best way to facilitate that in my opinion but it was a quick and easy (and less costly in development time/money) way to do so.

The story is the backbone of FFXIV. Paying to skip the story is paying to skip the game and paying to skip the game and then complaining you have nothing to do is stupid.


The story IS the primary content. The stuff gated by the story is just additional content.

Regardless of its namesake, a MMO doesn't have the luxury of relying on story to be its primary focus. It took me no more than a week finish the Stormblood MSQ. Even for someone committing only a handful of hours, it simply won't last even half the length of our current patch cycle. Subsequent MSQ updates through patches amount to an hour or two at most. Gameplay has to fill this gap hence the numerous time gates to limit progression so we don't force ourselves ahead. I've found other things to do, but that is because I play half the jobs, am an Omni-crafter and more recently, have gotten back into roleplaying. If you're only interested in battle content, there is... very little. You have three dungeons, two laughably easy primals and Savage. That isn't a lot.